From 24 January 2024 the nhs.uk website will be making significant changes to how they moderate patient feedback about services.
Because Care Opinion sends stories to nhs.uk about healthcare in England, this will affect whether stories posted on Care Opinion can also appear on nhs.uk.
On this page you can learn more about the changes nhs.uk is making, and how these changes may affect you.
What is happening?
For many years Care Opinion has partnered with nhs.uk (which covers England only) to share the stories and responses posted on each site, making it easier to see everything in one place. Like Care Opinion, nhs.uk moderates all stories.
From 24 January 2024, nhs.uk will use automated moderation (AI) to moderate stories, with some human moderators as back up.
The new AI moderation introduces firmer rules than before on what people can post on nhs.uk.
Rules which will stop a story appearing on nhs.uk
If a story author includes any of the following in their story, they will be asked to edit and resubmit the story:
- Email addresses or links to web sites
- Fully capitalised text (apart from some allowed acronyms)
- Offensive language (swearing)
- Names or descriptions of staff members
If the story is not about a specific experience of care it will be rejected.
If the story is about a very serious issue (negligence or criminal activity) or the author wants to make a complaint, they will be advised to make a formal complaint.
If the story raises a safeguarding concern (self-harm, suicidal thoughts) it will be referred to a human moderator.
Responses posted by staff will not be moderated, but will be published immediately.
How does this affect Care Opinion?
Care Opinion will continue to “pull” stories and responses from nhs.uk just as we do now.
We will also continue to “push” stories and responses to nhs.uk, but:
- nhs.uk has asked us to pause sending anything from 24 January 2024 until they have the new system operational. Once we are allowed to resume sending posts, we will also send the backlog so everything will catch up
- Some stories we send to nhs.uk will now be rejected by the new AI moderation
Care Opinion’s moderation rules are different from those of nhs.uk. We do allow staff names and descriptions in stories, so long as the individual is not being criticised.
For example, we would allow: “Laura the student midwife held my hand and explained what was happening.” If we send a story which includes this to nhs.uk, it will be rejected.
But authors often want to thank and encourage staff by name, and we believe that including staff names can increase the value and impact of feedback to services (including, for example, contributing to appraisal and revalidation portfolios).
It is likely that stories which include staff names will be the largest category of Care Opinion stories which will be rejected by the new nhs.uk system.
How does this affect healthcare providers in England?
You will still be able to see all your stories and responses on Care Opinion, from both us and nhs.uk.
If you look on nhs.uk, you may find some stories and responses are missing:
- For a temporary period after 24 January, but we hope only for a week or two
- But long term, stories from Care Opinion containing staff names won’t appear on nhs.uk
So if you want to respond to stories which contain staff names, you would need to do this on Care Opinion.
Once the system is running, we will add information to Care Opinion so you can see whether a story we have pushed to nhs.uk was accepted or rejected, and why.